Carney Chukwuemeka’s loan to Borussia Dortmund has seen him make plenty of impressive cameos, but has been a little limited by injury.
Well today he got his first start and his first goal as his side beat Freiburg 4-1. You can see the goal in the clip by following this link.
It was a little fortunate, admittedly, with the midfielder taking a bad touch and then seeing his deflected shot go in, but from what we hear his overall performance was superb and merited it regardless.
He was flickering between the lines as is his style, creating angles and passes and making runs beyond the defence like the one which led to his goal.
Praise for Chukwuemeka – but why didn’t Chelsea keep him?
The official Borussia Dortmund Twitter account Tweeted at full time:
“Carney Chukwuemeka, take a bow. What a performance,” and they weren’t the only ones showering him with praise.
What we really don’t get is why Chukwuemeka was discarded so freely this season. With someone like Ben Chilwell we didn’t agree with it, but we could sort of see the logic tactically as Enzo Maresca insisted he just didn’t want a player of that type.
But with Chukwuemeka, surely he could have contributed more than Joao Felix or Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall in similar positions? That would have saved us more than £80m in the summer market.
Was it just his fitness issues that made us think he couldn’t be relied upon? In that case, why did we trust Wesley Fofana and Romeo Lavia?
In any case, we’re so happy for Carney, and we hope he gets a great move in the summer. It looks like we won’t be selling him to Dortmund – but who knows? Maybe this performance has made them think he might be worth the €35m or so that we’re asking for after all.
